Night of the Evil Butterball

Barack Obama and daughters get press attention at the annual National Thanksgiving Turkey pardon ceremony in the Rose Garden along with. National Turkey Federation Chairman Jihad Douglas. (Official White House Photo) Per RT.com, Obama omitted using Douglas’ first name at the media event, presumably because the term is not generally associated with pardoning human beings. (Click on photo for RT story link.)

This is my traditional Thanksgiving essay, first posted in 2000 and updated every year since:

Attacks by roving flocks of wild turkeys are on the increase around suburban Boston–AP

Time was, the turkey was considered a game bird. The Pilgrims at Plymouth feasted on them. Generations later, Ben Franklin considered it such a useful fowl that he nominated it for the national bird.

Of course, this was in the days when the right to bear arms was taken for granted, when free people hunted turkeys for sustenance, all the while honing marksmanship that would serve them well in time of need.

Fast-forward to present-day Boston, a place of sacred tradition, the literal forge for our heritage of individual liberty. Except Boston is now a place where traditions have been betrayed. Its current overlords have succeeded in disarming the whole people in a way that General Gage could never have conceived possible.

So successful have these rulers been that the city that gave us Sam Adams and Paul Revere is now a city under siege, and this is fittingly ironic if you think about it, by wild turkeys. So helpless and hapless are Boston’s modern-day patriots, they can do little except retreat from the aggressive gobblers, escape, hole up and plead for rescue from the very authorities that enforce public impotence.

This is what the heirs of The Sons of Liberty have been reduced to. This is what they have allowed, and in many cases, demanded. Human beings, with dominion over the earth, scurrying from turkeys. The tolerated degradation of the masses is damned near complete.

This does not escape the notice of those who impose their tyranny upon us. What new outrage are they now free to impose? What can’t they do? After all, we’re talking about subjects who would cede their birthright to birds.

The greasy-lipped masters have to be laughing like hell as they reach across their table of plunder and rip off another drumstick…

—–

On a personal note to all my Oath Keepers friends, may you have as much to be thankful for as I do. Have a blessed Thanksgiving.

About Author

David Codrea blogs at The War on Guns: Notes from the Resistance (WarOnGuns.com), and is a field editor/columnist for GUNS Magazine. Named “Journalist of the Year” in 2011 by the Second Amendment Foundation for his groundbreaking work on the “Fast and Furious” ATF “gunwalking” scandal, he is a frequent event speaker and guest on national radio and television programs.

"A veteran - whether active duty, retired, national guard, or reserve - is someone who, at one point in his or her life, wrote a blank check made payable to The ''United States of America'', for an amount of ''up to and including his life.''" – Author Unknown"If there must be trouble, let it be in my day, that my child may have peace." – Thomas Paine"Those who expect to reap the blessings of freedom must, like men, undergo the fatigue of supporting it.” – Thomas Paine

Veterans, you swore an Oath...

Oath of Enlistment

I, (NAME), do solemnly swear (or affirm) that I will support and defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign and domestic; that I will bear true faith and allegiance to the same; and that I will obey the orders of the President of the United States and the orders of the officers appointed over me, according to regulations and the Uniform Code of Military Justice. So help me God.

Officers Oath

I, [name], do solemnly swear (or affirm) that I will support and defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign and domestic; that I will bear true faith and allegiance to the same; that I take this obligation freely, without any mental reservation or purpose of evasion; and that I will well and faithfully discharge the duties of the office on which I am about to enter. So help me God.

Site Dedication

This site is dedicated to the memory of John William Adams (1925-2006), Marine and Oath Keeper extraordinaire.

John Adams, at the age of 16, lied about his age to join the Marines so he could fight against Imperial Japan in the Pacific. His enlistment date was December 10, 1941, just three days after the attack on Pearl Harbor (see below). As a Marine rifleman, he fought the Japanese from island to island, across the pacific, including at Iwo Jima. We may have good men, but we never had better.

Until his death in 2006, he was a dedicated patriot who still took his oath to defend the Republic deadly serious. May God grant you the courage to do likewise.

Stewart is the founder and Director of Oath Keepers. He served as a U.S. Army paratrooper until disabled in a rough terrain parachuting accident during a night jump.

He is a former firearms instructor and former member of Rep. Ron Paul’s DC staff.

Stewart previously wrote the monthly Enemy at the Gates column for S.W.A.T. Magazine

Stewart graduated from Yale Law School in 2004, where his paper “Solving the Puzzle of Enemy Combatant Status” won Yale’s Miller prize for best paper on the Bill of Rights. He assisted teaching U.S. military history at Yale, was a Yale Research Scholar, and is writing a book on the dangers of applying the laws of war to the American people.